Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(47)

“Probably not.”

“We’re rough in bed, the two of us.” Monica was past sense. Her hand had gone cold, and she was babbling. “I shouldn’t say this, but you’re a doctor, right? I mean, sometimes, it’s just, well, like I said we get rough and—”

“I saw the bruising, and no, that wouldn’t cause this. I’m sorry. The good news is, you’re in perfect shape. You should be able to conceive again without a problem.”

I stood. “Thank you, Doctor.” I held out my hand. Those people had to leave immediately. I got it. I’d heard it. I needed to be alone with my wife.

“Not so fast,” she said. “Let me give you a quick rundown, then I’ll leave you alone. You have tissue in your uterus that your body needs to get rid of. It’s messy and painful, and it could start today or next week. Most patients opt for us to remove it by dilating the cervix and scraping the uterus. That shortens the—”

“No.” Monica pointed her chin up. “I’m not evicting the baby.”

“Mrs. Drazen, I’m sorry, but there is no baby.”

“Don’t you tell me there’s no baby!” She was pure kinetic energy. A blur. Her limbs were still but poised to shake the earth free of its orbit.

I put myself between the two women.

“There is a motherf*cking baby!” Monica called from behind me.

I felt the same as she did. I felt all her anger and denial, but I couldn’t allow myself to get lost in it. “Is there anything else, Doctor?” She had to get out before we were escorted out.

Unfazed by Monica’s denials, Blakely took a card out of her pocket. “Call me if the pain is really bad. I’ll prescribe something.”

“Pain?” Monica’s voice shot from behind me. “I can take pain. Just try me.”

I took the card. This was it. So much had changed in the past four hours, I felt numb. I hadn’t even had a chance to process flying to New York, then not flying to New York, then the baby, now the lack of the baby. It had been a day of miserable false starts, ending with the promise of pain for my wife. “Thank you.”

“Have her take it easy, if possible. It’s going to hurt.”

chapter 34.

MONICA

Take it easy. What kind of bullshit was that? How was I supposed to take it easy? Was I supposed to sip piña coladas by the pool and wait for a miscarriage? Like la-di-da, let’s take a jog and have a good laugh and watch TV and forget that my whole life, everything I thought I wanted, changed in the past two days. I’m supposed to pretend that didn’t happen?

Well, f*ck you, Doctor. Fuck you with a big bag of f*cking f*cks.

Once that f*cking f*ck of a doctor and her little nurse were gone, I flipped them a double bird, because f*ck them and f*ck that machine and f*ck that room and f*ck that hospital and f*ck the lie I f*cking wrote on myself.

“And f*ck you,” I said to Jonathan when he twirled my underwear.

“You should get the D&C,” he said, looping the cotton panties around my ankles. “Let the doctor end this. She suggested it for a reason.”

“No.”

“What if you’re in the studio when you start cramping?”

“Fuck the studio. I hate this hospital. I hate everything about it. It’s a rat shithole. Everything is beige and pale pink. The decorator should be shot. And they could run f*cking potpourri through the vents, and it would still smell like bleach and death.”

He slid my underpants back on, and I let him, because I was too mad, too confused by my tangle of emotions to get dressed and get off the table. Jonathan pulled me into a sitting position.

“Don’t fight me,” he said, opening the door.

His voice was as definitive as ever, telling me my behavior before I had a chance to question it. I didn’t know what he meant until he put his arms under me and picked me up, carrying me out the door and down the hall. I put my arms around his neck and rested my head on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to look,” he said, and I knew what he meant.

I closed my eyes and focused on his leather scent, pretending that bleach and medicine didn’t hover around the edges, ignoring the ding of the elevator and the whispering of nurses and doctors in their parallel language. It was so familiar and so foreign, because though the sounds and smells were the same, this time I wasn’t worried about Jonathan, or even myself. I was just angry, and disappointed, and touching the edges of grieving the loss of something I hadn’t even wanted twenty-four hours ago.

“I’m okay,” I said into Jonathan’s ear as he carried me out of the elevator and across the lobby.

“I know.”

“I’m not upset anymore.”

“I know.

“You can put me down.” I opened my eyes. He filled the frame of my vision.

“Nope. You’re my wife, and I’ll carry you where I like.”

Lil waited in the roundabout, parked in the red zone as if it were a marker for Bentleys. She opened the back door, and Jonathan poured me in.

I didn’t say anything the whole way home. I sat on Jonathan’s lap, wrapped in him, my head on his shoulder. Somewhere on the 10 freeway, I felt a twinge, and it started. The doctor had been very explicit about what to expect, and I didn’t know if I’d thought I’d be immune, or I didn’t care, or if I simply underestimated what she’d meant by pain and bleeding.